Pain doesn't end for families after end of war in Afghanistan

Afghanistan war ends but grief endures for Dunedin mom
TBO
Howard Altman
December 30, 2014

For Kim Allison, the pain of loss did not end Sunday when Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel presided over a ceremony in Kabul officially closing out the 13-year-long war in Afghanistan.

On March 11, 2013, Allison’s youngest son, Army Spc. Zachary Shannon, died in a Black Hawk helicopter crash in Afghanistan.

Shannon, a 2010 graduate of Dunedin High School, was just 21.

There was no way of knowing it at the time, but Shannon would be the last service member who grew up in the Tampa area to die in Operation Enduring Freedom, as the war was officially called,

Since Oct. 7, 2001, when bombs and missiles began falling on insurgent positions in Afghanistan, 150 service members who listed Florida as their home of choice died in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Aside from Shannon, there were 34 men and one woman who listed Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Polk, Manatee or Hernando counties as their addresses, according to an Associated Press database.

Allison, 53, says she didn’t pay attention to the Kabul ceremony, didn’t really realize the war was over and didn’t know that her son was the last lifelong Floridian to die.

All she knew was that the grief is enduring — for her son, for all the others who made the ultimate sacrifice and their families and for all those who survived but are still suffering the aftermath of combat.

“I will be glad when the troops come home,” she says, “so that nobody else will go through what we did.”
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Troops listing the Tampa area as home who died in the Afghanistan war.

Oct. 8, 2002: Marine Cpl. Antonio James Sledd, 20, Tampa.
March 23, 2003: Air Force Mst. Sgt. Michael Henry Maltz, 42, St. Petersburg.
May 8, 2004: Marine Cpl. Ronald Raymond Payne Jr., 23, Lakeland.
July 2, 2003: Army Staff Sgt. Michael Wayne Shafer 25, Spring Hill.
June 24, 2006: Florida Army National Guard Staff Sgt. Joseph Frederick Fuerst III, 26, Tampa.
June 28, 2006: Army Cpl. Aaron Matthew Griner, 24, Tampa.
April 27, 2007: Army Staff Sgt. Michael D. Thomas, 34, Seffner.
Aug. 28. 2007: Army Sgt. Cory L. Clark, 25, Plant City.
Sept. 28, 2008: Army Sgt. William E. Hasenflu, 38, Bradenton.
June 15, 2009: Army Spc. Jonathan C. O’Neill 22, Zeyphyrhills.
July 14, 2009: Army Sgt. 1st Class Jason J. Fabrizi, 29, Seffner.
July 24, 2009: Army Spc. Justin D. Coleman, 21, Weeki Wachee.
Oct. 23, 2009: Army Spc. Eric N. Lembke, 25, Tampa.
Jan. 24, 2010: Marine Sgt. Daniel M. Angus, 28, Thonotosassa.
Feb. 13, 2010: Army Staff Sgt. John A. Reiners, 24, Lakeland.
March 14, 2010: Marine Cpl. Jonathan D. Porto, 26, Largo.
June 27, 2010: Army Spc. David W. Thomas, 40, St. Petersburg.
Aug. 8, 2010: Army Pfc. Paul O. Cuzzupe, 23, Plant City.
Aug. 21, 2010: Marine Lance Cpl. Nathaniel J. A. Schultz, 19, Safety Harbor.
Oct. 10, 2010: Army Spc. David A. Hess, 25, Ruskin.
Feb. 22, 2011: Marine Cpl. Jonathan W. Taylor, 23, Homosassa.
March 22, 2011: Army Pfc. Michael C. Mahr, 26, Homosassa.
April 28, 2011: Marine Lance Cpl. Ronald D. Freeman, 25, Plant City.
June 2, 2011: Army 1st Lt. Dimitri Del Castillo, 24, Tampa.
July 16, 2011: Army Spc. Frank R. Gross, 25, Oldsmar.
Sept. 4, 2011: Army Pfc. Christophe J. Marquis, 40, Tampa.
Sept. 28, 2011: Army 1st Lt. Ivan D. Lechowich, 27, Valrico.
Dec. 3, 2011: Army Spc. Ryan M. Lumley, 21, Lakeland.
June 11, 2012: Navy Master Chief Petty Officer Richard J. Kessler, 47, Gulfport.
July 8, 2012: Army Spc. Clarence Williams III, 23, Brooksville.
July 8, 2012, Army Staff Sgt. Ricardo Seija, 31, Tampa.
Aug. 2, 2012: Army Staff Sgt. Matthew S. Sitton, 26, Largo.
Oct. 13, 2012: Army Spc. Brittany B. Gordon, 24 St. Petersburg.
March 11, 2013: Army Spc. Zachary L. Shannon, 21, Dunedin.
*April 3, 2013: Air Force Cpt. Michael Steel, 29, Tampa.
*Aug. 20, 2014: Army Sgt. 1st Class Matthew I. Leggett, 39, Ruskin.
*Though troops can list anywhere as an address of choice, neither Steel nor Leggett grew up in Florida.
Steel was born at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa but moved out of state when he was a toddler. Leggett was born in Minnesota and raised in Wisconsin, but his mother lives in Ruskin.
Source” AP News Research Web services.